The Memphis appeal. [volume] (Memphis, Tenn.) 1886-1890, 1887-01-30
LUDWIG WlNBIHORST,
TINE EARNEST OPPONENT OF
PRINCE BISMARtK.
Career Of the Intellectual GiEnt But
Physical Dwarf Who is Kated
by the Chancellor.

mite OF man, after the great Chan
cellor, with his SIX feet six aud hi
strident voice, has ceased speaking
climbing quickly over the benches
which separate him from the
Speakers desk, reach it and thus
confront the colossus whom he looks
upon as the Belial of modern times
is sight worth seeing. Il is like
the little spaniel tackling the ele-
phant. But see him now raise his
head. A noble head A broad ex-
panse OF brow, two piercing brown
eyes, whose cleaning is but partially
concealed by the gold trimmed spec
tacles and the fluffy white hair, Civ
ing an air of originality to the entire
face. His voice rings out clear and
bold.
Windthorst is called by his admir-
ers "the Pearl of Meppen," for he
halls from that town, like Nazareth,
famous for nothing before. He was
born on November II, 1912, and is,
therefore, in his 10th year. But he
seems to have drunk from Ponce de
Icons font, for he is still as clipper
as a squirrel. He comes of a some
what distinguished family, of the old
Catholic faith and ample means. He
studied law in Gottingeu and Heidel-
berg, and then practiced it for a
short while, till appointed presiding
counsellor of the consistory OF Osna-
bruck. This was, of course, in the
times when Hanover was still an in
dependent Kingdom, cherishing
dreams Of greater greatness, together
with an implacable hatred for Prus-
STA. the despoiler. From 1919 to
1866 Windthorst was a member of
the Hanoverian House of Delegates,
aud in 1851 he was its President.
He was rendered the portfolio of
justice in the Cabinet, and
exercised the functions Of this
important Office, with several
Interruptions, till 1865, then re-
8 gning on account of a difference
with blind King George as to the
best way for Hanover to meet the
gathering storm cloud of the Austro-
Prussian war. The day of Sadowa
was fought. Hanover saw its splen-
did little army demolished on the
battlefield of Langensalza, and at the
treaty of Prague poor King George,
blind in more senses than one, was
left in the lurch by Austria and
France alike, and saw his sovereign
ty swept away by King William.
DespairiRg, broken hearted, this
king-a pathetic figure in the his
tory of our times-left the land over
which his forefathers had ruled for
thousand years, and went into ban
isbment and death. 1t was at this
time that Windthorst achieved a ma
tional reputation. He it was who
was selected by King George as his
champion to defend his claims to the
vast royal domains and treasures
against Prussia's greed. And what
slice the blind monarch finally OBJ
tanned out of that mass of wealth,
known in history as the Guelph fund,
was wrested out of King Williams
hands by this little indomitable man,
this pigmy of Meppen.
The year 1867 saw him elected to
the Prussiap House Of Deputies and
then to the Reichstag. He has sat
there ever since, one of its most con-
spicuous members, and, in the esti-
nation of many, next to Bismarck,
the ablest. In a country where elo-
quence is rare gift, where the gift
of fluent, lucid, electric speech is but
seldom granted, the oratorical emf
nence of the man alone was enough
to make him a shining light in the
young and untried Parliament. For
if Windthorst does not often give
birth to one of these winged words"
(gehuegelte worte) for which Bis
marck is famous, nor often indulge
in those torrent like bursts of natur-
ally vehement and petulant eloquence
which his great adversary's nervous
temperament often engenders, he is
much the more finished and logical
speaker of the two. His sentences
are always clear cut, crystal like in
their smoothness and transparency.
His ideas follow in an unbroken
pEalanx and win over by their resist
less reasoning. Where Bismarck,
when crossed or foiled in debate,
storms and scolds, Windthorst
smoothly and ably confounds his
adversary by pitiless logic and facts
and figures drawn from an mex
haustible storehouse of knowledge.
No wonder the Chancellor often LETT
the parliamentarian arena van
pushed and sore. and when he used
the hammer of Thor against the lit
tie man, the little man used the
shafts of Apollo, singing sarcasm,
bitter irony, with more deadly effect.
Windthorst, the Little Excellen-
cy" as he is dubbed, has been since
1871 the leader ofthe Centrum. other.
wise known as the Clerical or Ultra
montana party, aud under his leader
ship these formerly scattered forces
have become the most powerful ally
or foe of the government, as the case
mightibe. He has shown himself to
be more than the peer of Bismarck in
parliamentarian tactics, has known
how to]marshal and deploy his small
army with consummate skill and has
never wasted his powder.
When Windthorst rises to speak
everybody is on the alert, for every
body knows that he has something
to say worth listening to, that he and
his party have taken stand on some
question or other, and that, with good
reasoning, mass of valuable data is
to come forth, shedding new light on
some mooted point. The Speaker
never has to call him to order, for
he is ever polite, sticks always TO the
matter under discussion, and never
makes misstatements. When he de-
siIes to repay an injury in kind, he
never becomes abusive or gross, but by
a clever inuendo, a yelled phrase, he
covers his man with confusion and
exposes him in derision. He has
scored his greatest oratorical tri-
umphs during those years when the
Culturkampf ragged at its fiercest,
when the palladium which he and
his party cherish the highest was ex-
nooah "a tho fproe assaultS IF tho